Qatari Investors Group Q.P.S.C. (QIGD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Qatari Investors Group. Please note that this presentation is being recorded. I'd now like to hand over to our moderator for today. Phibion, you can now start the conference call.

Thank you, Ellie. Good afternoon to you, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us for Qatari Investors Group 3Q 2023 earnings conference call. I would like to apologize for the delay. It won't happen again in future. My name is Phibion, Senior Research Analyst at QNB Financial Services. And on today's call, we have 2 members from the Qatari Investors Group management team. We've got the CEO, Joseph Abdo, and the Chief Financial Officer, Adel Senna. They'll go over the performance of the 3Q, and then we have a question and answer segment immediately after that. I will now turn over the call to the management to begin the call. Please go ahead, Joseph and Adel.

Thank you very much. I will read our English text, then I will move to Arabic, before starting the Q&A session. Ladies and gentlemen, this is my pleasure to welcome you to the earnings call of Qatari Investor Group, known as QIG. My name is Joseph Abdo, the CEO of the group; and here with me Mr. Adel Senna, our CFO. We are pleased to present to you the third quarter results of QIG Group for 2023. We will highlight the financial performance of the group and the progress that has been realized during the period. The group achieved a total revenue amounting to QAR 386 million for the period, which is lower than the same period of last year by 31%. This drop was led by the industrial sector as a result of the market slowdown in the construction sector as compared to last year. In addition, other sectors such as marine services have witnessed a decline in the top line due to the drop in cargo imports for the period as compared to last year. The group net profit for the period amounted to QAR 124 million, an 18% decline as compared to the same period of last year as a result of the drop in overall revenues. The group EBITDA reached to QAR 222 million for the period, 12% lower than last year, also due to the drop in overall revenues. Overall we can say that the last couple of years witnessed a significant growth in the overall market due to the FIFA 2022 preparations and projects, which have been ended last December. This fact made the comparison with 2023 a bit difficult, but QIG has successfully managed to maintain sustainable profitability margins despite the overall market decline in several sectors. Finally, we are in the process of evaluating some projects in the pipeline as part of our continuous efforts in implementing the strategy of diversification in investments to make more achievements that benefit the group and make us play a role in supporting Qatar's economic vision. Thank you, and I'll move to the Arabic text. [Foreign Language] Now we are ready for the question-and-answer session.

[Operator Instructions] We have our first question from Ejayan Al-ahbabi from Al Rayan Investment.

Just one question. We saw a significant increase from quarter-over-quarter basis on the general and administration expenses. Any rationale why this particular item increased so much between third and second quarter?

Thank you for your answer (sic) [ question ] . I'll pass it to our CFO, and then he will provide you with the right answer.

Hi, everyone. So in answer to your question, this is related to a reclassification of costs which were used to be booked under the cost of goods, and this was corrected in Q3 and that includes goodwill expense or provision of goodwill, in addition to salaries and wages, which, again, were part of cost of goods sold in the past, but these are currently in the right place where they should be booked according to the accounting standards in the G&A, as well as some maintenance activities as well that are related to G&A, which were only posted under cost of goods sold in the past. So these amount to QAR 20 million in total.

QAR 20 million in total, okay. So -- but there are no one-offs in this SG&A, right? These are all recurring items?

Correct.

Okay. My second question is, could you tell us the volume that was sold for cement during the third quarter of this year?